This invention relates to current taps such as cord connectors and convenience outlets and more particularly to a gound contact for use in a current tap.
Current taps are well known and have been employed in the prior art many years. A very popular type of current tap is depicted in U.S. Pat. No. 3,353,137 entitled CURRENT TAP WITH GROUND issued on Nov. 14, 1967 to Daniel B. Miller and assigned to the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation, the assignee herein. As can be seen from this Patent, there is shown a current tap that comprises a molded body of resilient material which contains a pair of parallel contact strips and a ground contact strip disposed therein and adjacent to the parallel pair of contact strips. On one side of the plug body there is shown a first pair of parallel plug receivable openings and on the side opposite, second and third pairs of parallel plug receivable openings. Disposed adjacent to each pair of parallel plug receivable openings is a ground connection opening. The ground connection opening interfaces with a ground contact strip which is disposed intermediate to parallel contact strips and contains an outer loop comprised of two arcuate fingers forming a semiellipse. The contact strip also has another receptacle formed by slitting the contact strip in the middle to form a tab and shaping the tab into another semielliptical receptacle.
The current tap described in the above Patent is extremely reliable and has been in commerical use for many years. In any event, the current tap as described in that Patent must accomodate male plugs which are three pronged devices and which may have a round or a U shaped ground pin. It has been found that the device depicted in the above patent suffers in that the ground strip tends to conform to the U shaped ground pin. This occurs based on a typical use as the current tap will be used to accomodate different male plugs which are inserted and removed from the tap according to the desire of a user. Due to this fact, the shape of the receptacles as formed in the ground contact strip in U.S. Pat. No. 3,353,137 assume and conform to the U shaped ground dimensions. This occurs because the U shaped grounds have dimensions which specify the maximum allowed dimensions according to the present electrical code. On the other hand, the round ground plug conforms to the minimum dimensions.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a ground contact for use in a current tap which contact will accomodate a U shaped ground found on wiring devices and also a round ground found on molded caps used on cordsets.